"long distance"

So I have blogged about just about everything in my life in Jordan. My house, my jobs, my frustrations, my friends, my co-workers, my sister, my tutor, my bank.  But I have yet to say anything about probably the biggest part of my life, Max. When I asked my boyfriend what I should blog about the other day, he said, "me!" And my strongly feminist, highly independent self only slightly began to consider it.  Max will be the first one to tell you how hard it would be for me to admit any sort of dependence on anyone, most of all a boy; but the truth is, the person who gets me through long days in Mafraq, lonely mornings in a cold apartment, and late nights falling asleep to skype and picture slideshow, is him.  Now, there is a time and place for everything, and I don't mean for this to be a post publicly confessing my unyielding love for this amazing person in my life (another time, pal, not now :), but I do think it is an important opportunity to reflect on a. international emotional support b. long distance relationships and c. gender relations in Jordan vs. the U.S.
a. I am not a great ex-pat. While I love my life here, I really can't see myself "moving" to Jordan. Visiting again? yes.  Staying here for another year sometime in the future? yes.  Staying here for two years? maybe.  Living here and raising children and having a fulltime job indefinitely? not so much.  Now, I'm not to say that won't ever change, but for now, I am happy to think that in seven months I will be heading back to the states to celebrate my country's independence day in red, white and blue.  And I know a lot of the Fulbrighters feel the same way, and a lot of peace corps volunteers feel the same way and a lot of Jordanians feel the same way.  Because the truth is, the living here ain't easy and it's not easy anywhere to be a foreigner.  To be out of one's own element and even if only subconsciously, even if only in your own mind, to be labeled as "outsider."  So I love Jordan, but the need to sort out the things in my head, the need to make someone who knows me understand the feelings I have about differences, goes far past my ability to blog or journal.  In whatever form it takes, my experience here has made me realize just how much we need intimate human interaction and understanding.  When I feel like Arabic and English are both failing me, I have my international support network to translate "Jennifer-icsh" into something that makes me appreciate my happiness and my struggles living abroad. Max is not the only translator I have, but he is a darn good one and often works double shifts.
b.  Long distance relationships suck. It sucks to not be with the person you care about and want to be with the most.  That sucks.  Does it suck, you might ask? Why yes, it does. But, the choice to make someone a part of your life when it creates so much suck-iness, is a powerful one; and far from emotionally separating two people, I do think it gives an opportunity to bring them closer together.  Not physically, obviously (begrudgingly) but in a way that demands more trust, more communication, and more frequent and outward expressions of love. This is a huge part of my life here.  Not because I am attached to things from home or because I am not being present in Jordan, but because with love the world becomes a smaller place and my American and Fulbright Jordanian parts are not mutually exclusive.  Long distance does not make me less here and it does not make me feel any less.  Instead, it grows my heart's space in the world.  I'm like the Grinch when he decides to give back Christmas. Just like when his heart grows from three sizes too small to maybe six sizes bigger, my heart has grown big enough to span multiple continents.  (coincidentally, the Grinch and I both also love a person or dog named Max)
c.  Ghada, my tutor, explained dating here and it sounded very complicated.  In some families, you have to pretend not to know the person and then convince your dad he wants you to marry him. In other families, all the women in the family have to go check out a girl before she is presented to the son.  More liberal situations, boys and girls are aloud to be seen together but touching is not aloud until they are engaged, after which they can do pretty much everything but have sex.  Now, horomones being what they are, this hardly stops Jordanian youth from getting frisky, so to speak. People are sneaking off into bushes and forests, parking in cars, finding foreign women to harass.  Just today, Jomana said she caught two students making out in a forgotten hallway! In my classes, boys and girls most often sit apart, girls and women in my Iraqi classes are much more timid in front of men, and in general gender relations just seem.. tricky.  Frequently, I think how glad I am to have been able to go on dates. To be able to hold hands in public, even occasionally kiss!  To be open with Max, to know that he respects me, supports me, and views me completely as an equal.  This is a cultural liberty that I dont think I always appreciate.  There are certainly limiting features of American culture to both men and women.  And there are good people that respect others regardless of gender in Jordan and America.  But the freedom to act together as a couple, to express a relationship openly, is one that I recognize much more not having it.  I cannot imagine being in a relationship I felt I had to hide (I hope you realize the parallels here to homosexuality in America..) or one in which I felt I was not equally in control.  I cannot imagine having the choice to marry be the choice to not be an old maid social outcast instead of a choice of who to love and spend my life with.  Please, don't take these as blanket statements.  Things are changing.  There are very progressive, respectful, and respected men and women here in Jordan.  But in general, Max will still have to sit in the front seat of cabs when he comes to visit and me in the back.  I still will not hug him in public and I will not touch him at all if he comes to Mafraq with me.  But when we are back on American soil, you can bet that the second I get off that plane, the freedom I will most appreciate is the one to be welcomed back with a large public display of affection.

These are my thoughts.  If I can live with blogging about a boy.

"where to now" spoiler!

    On Tuesday, my Arabic tutor took me to see a recent film about the Lebanese civil war called, "Where to Now"  I didn't know much (re: anything) about the war in Lebanon from 1975-1990 but I learned from the film and reading afterward, it was a lot of fighting between Christians and Muslims.  The movie is about an isolated village that is on the cusp of fighting, but kept from violence by the women of the town who will do anything to keep the men from finding out about the religious war and politics in the rest of the country.  The film is not perfect, the women humorously use sex and drugs to distract the men who are ignorant and violent, obviously some not so valuable stereotypes being perpetuated here.  But overall, I thought it was a beautiful film that did well to communicate the important fact that women are disproportionately affected by conflict.  In the end, the women of the village all convert to the opposite religion.  The Christian women don the Hijab and a young Muslim man wakes up to his mother sprinkling holy water on him from a statue of the Virgin Mary.  "If you are going to fight the enemy, you will have to start with me."  A powerful image of what happens when we put ourselves in the shoes of the other.
    At one particularly sad point in the movie, my tutor and I were both audibly crying and sniffling.  This was probably the most powerful part of the film for me.  Here I was, a Christian sitting next to a Muslim woman, having the same response to seeing violence and death just in a movie theatre.  This whole year is about a cultural exchange, but no exchange was needed for us both to feel sadness about a mother burying her son.  No exchange was needed to share in laughter about women joking about their habits, their bodies, and the men in their lives.  I love learning the differences of Arabic culture, but I also love seeing how we are so much the same. This is what the movie was about, why do we fight when we are all people?  when we are all mothers, and children, and sons, and neighbors?  What cross or Quran is worth killing for? What deity would ask for this? 
    On a lighter but similar note, I had even more Jordanian female interaction (which is one of the end goals of my existance here).  My banker, who you perhaps remember from a blogpost of mine, finally invited me out to a cafe!!  I met her and two of her friends and our language exchange was a fast track to friendship.  Despite their "poor" English, which is actually quite good, we had plenty to talk about for multiple hours and had a lovely time drinking tea and eating brownie ice cream sundaes (another cultural universal).  My female friends are one of my most valuable treasures in life and I felt so lucky to be invited to spend time with these obviously loving and loyal young women.
   In my final note on women, we are hoping to start teaching in yet another house of refugees, this one, mostly women!  There is a small Somali refugee population in Jordan, and through our work with the Sudanese, they discovered us and came also to ask for English lessons.  I am really optimistic and hopeful about all of these projects, and enjoy conversations with the director of the program daydreaming how to expand them and make them sustainable.  Once again, let me know if you want to start a school...

I walked into my third period class today to see "THNK dr. JNFR -to:students please!?" written on the blackboard.  I was kind of confused at first, thinking maybe it was my students begging me to think, or a call for me to please, thank them?  I was happily mistaken though, when one student clarified, "Happy Eid" (holiday). The class before we had talked about Thanksgiving, and somehow the proper holiday greeting got a little confused in translation, but the sentiment was the same.  I awkwardly tried to avoid erasing the board to put up my own notes and settled just to erase the "dr." in the middle (little did my students know I was erasing the LIES that are my qualifications to be a university professor).
  I begin every class with a speaking warm-up and my question for the previous class had been, "what are you thankful for?"  From my secular cultured perspective, it amazed me how many students proudly declared they were most thankful for their religion, for the fact that they were Muslim, for Islam in general, thankful that God had given them a Muslim life, a moral life, etc. etc.  It is a rare occasion that one's personal faith comes up in a classroom setting in the states, but here it's quite normal. It's interesting how "religious freedom" in the U.S. means the freedom to keep your religion to yourself and never talk about it, while here I feel there is much more freedom to talk about faith and God... as long as you are Muslim.  (For more reasons than not, I was hardly tempted to declare that I was most thankful for Jesus this Thanksgiving) Other answers were more typical, friends and family, good health and opportunities to study and go to a university.  The more I get to know my students, the more I come to love them and view them as people.. as opposed to demons sent to judge my inability and insecurities as a teacher and claim they have "a test" so they can leave my class.  Today, my question was, "what is your favorite _____________, and why?"  One guy chose the category "people" and said "My favorite person is my mother, because she raised me well, she is my guide and my friend."  If that is not an answer to be thankful for, I dont know what is.
  I admitted this fact to my students today; that I liked them.  I promised that for those who came to class, I would make sure they got good marks on their final presentation grades.  I said I knew the faces of those who came to class and those who were strangers.  One of my favorite smart alec students asked, "Yeah but do you know our names?"  I admitted that I had absolutely no clue.  someday I will get this teaching thing down. Or I wont have to do it any more. THNK fr. STDNTS.  Please?!

Need a hospital from all the hospitality?

My Arabic tutor's name is Ghada.  She is a wonderful woman with a lot of patience for my poor memory and pronunciation.  She prods at me to "make my tongue lazy" and stop articulating vowels- apparently the key to speaking like a native Jordanian is to give up most everything tht makes Arabic at all understandable to me.  Anyway my last lesson we read some texts to help me with the language, and also provide a lesson in Arab culture.  One of the dialogues went something like this:
person A: "Come in for coffee!"
person B: "Oh no I really dont have time"
A: Sure you do, please come in come in.
B: No, I dont want to bother you.
A: You shame me, come in or I will die.
Person B enters the home of person A.
A: Have some cake, and cookies, and coffee, and tea.
B: Oh, no thank you, I'm really not hungry I just ate.
A: No, please.  Just eat a bite.  You must be a little bit hungry.
B: No, really.  Please, I really really don't want anything, I should be going soon..
A: eat.  And where are you going?  I will take you. Take the rest of these cookies, and this cake, and a thermos of coffee. 
B: No, I can walk, I just have to go down the street.
A: Absolutely not this is unacceptable. Get in  my car right now.

This is not an exaggeration; this is Arab hospitality.  Wonderfully stiffling, sometimes terrifying hospitality.  Ghada explained, "When we have a guest, we try to do everything we can for them and the guest tries to not be a bother so they want to have the least thing from the host."  Hospitality is a brutal battle of wills. I can't decide if this is the best or scariest thing about the culture here.  Sometimes both?

Give thanks, thanks giving, giving thanks, Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving may still be a week away, but on my flight back to Amman, after a visit with my big sis, I had had such a nice trip that it seemed only appropriate to journal how grateful I was for all of it.  So to beat the holiday rush, here are some notes of thanks and a good overview of my time in Deutschland.

I am thankful for the most confident, talented, beautiful, intelligent, passionate sister, role model, guide, back scratcher, and friend that I have to swap stories and experiences with.  I  am thankful to both her and my parents, that while I may be the only one in the family who doesn't know the composer and opus number of each piece, I can appreciate and enjoy a concert by the Thomanerchor in the church where Bach once spent his Sundays and where his bones now lay at rest.  I am thankful that my sister made me go to the opera, helped me to understand what was going on, and nudged me when my eyes "blinked" for just a little too long. Cathy's enthusiasm for music is infectious (unlike her gout...) and I love hearing her talk about women almost lost in classical music but whose genius rivaled, if not surpassed, the male composers of their time.  I am thankful to have met my sister's host parents, teachers, and friends who showed me that she is as loved in Germany as she is by me and that she has the support that even such a strong woman needs to stay happy and sane.  I am thankful for Herr Reichart, who somehow, five years ago, prepared me for lunch in a German home, and hid some weird working knowledge of the German language in my brain in a place where it could be uncovered if needed to talk about toilet paper, the cost of beer, and teaching.  I am thankful I got to go to the German History Museum, that I have never been directly affected by the tragedy that occurs when racism and/or facism take hold of a people, and that remembering and knowing about these things makes me better equipped to combat them in the present.  I am thankful that I got to see just a touch of Christmas and advent (though a little bit early). It lit a spark of holiday cheer that I think can carry me through the next couple of months.

I am thankful for all of these things, and to have seen all of this, but I am also glad to be back in my own adventure.  One that challenges me and fascinates me in its own way.  I am thankful that it is still warm here, that trench coats are in, and that headscarves, quite stylish, keep your body heat from escaping out your ears. 

As I left my sister at a time when we would usually be getting together, it made me extremely grateful for the family that I have spent every Christmas and Thanksgiving with for the past 21/22 years.  They have provided the love, banana pudding, walks, roller blades, Andy Griffith episodes, peanut butter balls, nutmeg logs, music, trees, and everything else that brings in the holiday season and also the confidence and support to know that I can go out on my own.  I will dance around a make believe manger scene this year, with no worry of Cathy spying on me. But, I will do so with an even greater appreciation of her existence, of all of my family's existence and the joy of being with them during the holidays... or this year, just a little before or after.

books about sisters sell well

Sitting on a comfortable armchair, looking out across my mug I see my sister, a bustling clothing shop, a restaurant called "Curryfire," and a little bakery.  There is a light jazz playing, an aroma of all things brewed, and the constant chatter that is found in an American coffeehouse.  We could easily be in Ames, IA, Boulder, CO, or Appleton, WI but we're not, we are in Leipzig, Germany and the brandname coffee is about where the "Americanization" of this globalization ends.  My trip to visit Cathy has thus far served to remind me that everywhere is different; Amman is not unique in being unique.  Even though the fall weather and love of cheese and beer feel very Wisconsin and remind me of my good natured midwestern home, I am very much a stranger in a strange land.
   Language is my first my most obvious difficulty. In Amman I have a cushion of white-ness that is my  obvious excuse for being unable to communicate, what otherwise might be perceived as stupidity.  Here, I'm just someone who looks like everyone else but for some reason cannot understand even simple store interactions.  Thank you, four years of high school German, for miraculously enabling me to at least say, "Sprechen Sie English?"
    My culture shock is emphasized I think by the fact that things that are different here are different in the opposite way as they are in Jordan.  Time is a good example.  The Germans are very punctual and exact about time.  We had lunch with my sister's host family, which began exactly at one when we were asked to arrive. If a train is supposed to come at 11:16 you had better not be there at 11:17 or you will walking or waiting for the next one.  In Jordan, I'm not even sure if there are reliable train schedules to be found, and if you find think a train leaves at eleven it might start boarding at half past.  An invitation might have a time attached but the jury is still out on when you should actually arrive and whether to arrive hungry or full. There is a good chance an hour or two will pass before any eating actually occurs.  Marriage is another example of these opposite universes.  In Germany, marriage can be more of an after thought.  Couples live together for years, maybe have kids, and then if all's well, get married.  In Amman, if you're not married you're not worth a whole lot and if you have kids outside of wedlock I'm pretty sure they are not recognized by society.  Men and women interact in public in Germany!  I've seen more holding hands and kissing here in a few days than I think happens in all of Jordan over the course of a year.  And finally, I really can't get over the fact that not only can I sit on public toilets here, I can flush my toilet paper.  Oh the innovation!

But, as stranger as I am, I still fit right in with my sister, sitting in Starbucks, enjoying a small (re: tall) cup of chai.  So for anyone concerned that globalization is just "McDonalds" planting its corporate seeds across the globe, I would like to paint a happier picture.  Globalization is the opportunity that I have to see so many different places and learn so much about such distinct cultures. There is no confusion that even in Starbucks, I am in Germany, and Germans are not Americans even if they spend their Euros here. But globalization does mean that I can learn that if I am meeting someone for coffee at 11 in Germany I would show up at 10:59.  In Amman, I would wait for a call to reschedule and then show up a half hour later.  And in the states, I would show up at 11:15 because I am always late to everything and somehow I feel like it's ok when I dont have other cultural deficiencies to apologize for.  I know that corporations and globalization are far from perfect or even harmless entities.  But I don't think they threaten the fact that cultures will maintain their differences, their intrigue, and their crazy. Just like my sister. Colorado, Leipzig, or I'm sure Amman, she will always walk down the street singing and make up obnoxious songs like, "there's nothing quite like going to Starbucks..." Culture is made up of  "unique" individuals such as her, and for that reason, I think we are safe from becoming too much the same.